FG taping the soles

Last night Cinzia filled the screw holes in the soles with resin. Today we started the FG taping of the soles, beginning with the forward one. We first prepared the surface for bonding with #50 grit sandpaper, and then cleaned everything with a vacuum cleaner and then a rag wetted with water and alcohol. We then  prepared a putty with resin thickened with microspheres and some cabosil, which was spread along the sole/hull corner using a 5 cm diameter plastic ball to make a fillet. At the end, the 10 cm FG tape was put over the fillet. About 4 m of tape were used. Here's a pic

Total work time to date: 307 hours

Central sole glued

Two more hours and more than half a liter of thickened resin to glue the central sole. This is larger and heavier of the other two sole panels, mainly due to the daggerboard trunk glued to the underside. We made a rudimental crane to lower the panel down, which surprisingly enough worked properly. Here's a pic with the milestone beer.

Total work time to date: 304 hours

Rear sole glued

After an idle period of two weeks here we are again. Two hours today to glue the rear sole with the usual technique. We also swapped the two floats on the cradles, so we had to take the main hull out.
Here's a pic that shows the main hull in all its glory

and here is how it looks like from the second floor

Total work time to date: 302 hours

Forward sole glued

Two hours today (hitting the 300 hours of work!) to glue the forward sole panel in the main hull. We first prepared the panel preboring 3 mm holes for the screws, sanding and cleaning the gluing surface

We then prepared about 400 grams of thickened resin which was spread on the gluing lines, and then screwed everything down.

Next time we will remove the screws, make a round fillet and FG tape the sole/hull corner all around.

Total work time to date: 300 hours!

Ready to glue the sole

Four hours of work today. It's getting hotter here in southern Italy, so a new fridge is mandatory now.
We worked with rasp, Surform and sandpaper to fair and round the daggerboard trunk edges at the sole (to be fair Cinzia did most of the work). Here's how it looked before

and here it is, almost done

We the covered the edge with fiberglass tape and resin. Going around the corners is not easy, but we trust much in fairing with putty...

We also filled the screw holes in the rudder plank, and we sanded and cleaned all sole supports in the main hull in preparation for the sole glueing session.

Total work time to date: 298 hours

Cockpit sole, daggerboard trunk and rudder blade

Five hours of work today. We first cut to size the 3 sole stiffeners. Here's Cinzia sitting in the main hull and still smiling before being buried under the sole to check

Then, we glued the daggerboard trunk and the stiffeners to the low side of the sole, making epoxy fillets all around. This took quite a bit of measuring, checking, planing and the like.

We were so enthusiastic to work with epoxy that we decided to laminate the rudder blade (same thickness of the daggerboard)

Several clamps were used on the sole, so we had to use more sheetrock screws to squeeze everything together.The protruding part of the core layer will be cut flush when the resin sets.

Total work time to date: 294 hours

Coating, and daggerboard

Today many (including us) took a day off since tomorrow is a holiday in Italy (Republic Day). We call this "ponte" (literally "bridge"). So we could work 4 hours at the boat.

First, we cut the centerboard hole in the centrale sole panel.

We also gave two coats of resin to the other two sole panels and to the daggerboard trunk

We then laminated the centerboard plank from 3 layers of plywood (15-6-15 mm) glued with thickened resin. We used sheetrock screws to squeeze the sandwich along the central line, and a liberal amount of clamps all around.

Total work time to date: 289 hours